


Ash Warriors

by orphan_account



Series: Amaranthine Nights [3]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Cock Bondage, F/M, Femdom, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Pegging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-06
Updated: 2011-10-06
Packaged: 2017-10-24 09:04:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a day in the stables, Nathaniel offered himself up to Cauthrien's revenge. He didn't realize he would have to work for it. A sequel to <i>Chevalier Games</i>. PWP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ash Warriors

**Author's Note:**

> Contains: Femdom, pegging, orgasm denial, violence.

Cauthrien disappeared as soon as the servants began clearing dinner from the table. Nathaniel was sitting halfway down the table from her, speaking with Stroud, when he saw her rise and without a look to him leave the hall. The lack of even a glance tugged a frown from him, but he thought he understood. Sitting beside their commander all evening had put even his nerves to the test, the memory of the stables still fresh in his mind. Stroud at least had the decency to act as if he hadn't heard them that afternoon. Nathaniel hoped that there was no punishment waiting in store.

But when he didn't see her and she didn't seek him out the rest of the evening, he began to worry. Had he pushed too far? Had he crossed a line he should never have even neared? Maker, but he had abused her in Orlesian, and though she had never faltered, though she had challenged him, though she had surged and writhed and _wanted_ beneath him, perhaps her acceptance of it had been a lie.

Cauthrien didn't lie, though. She didn't hide her feelings except beneath stoicism. She would not have teased him or held him or smiled. That was not her way. He knew her well enough for that.

It didn't quiet the fear.

He made his way to her room, slipping through shadows lest somebody pull him aside for some request or another. The halls were familiar, and it unsettled him to move through as if Vigil's Keep were a military posting and not his home. He took shortcuts known only to clever boys who preferred to sneak and clamber rather than barrel down the halls like Delilah had. He padded along stone floors, the supple leather of his boots silent as he moved. He came to her door from the gloom of the nearby corner, and knocked.

There was no response. Brow furrowing, he considered calling her name. Instead he opted for careful silence, reaching for the latch.

The door was unlocked and he slipped inside, shutting it behind him.

"Cauthrien?"

There was no response. The room was lit only with moonlight, the bed untouched, the air still.

He prayed he understood her. They had only tumbled into bed together for the first time two months before. The days and weeks since had felt good and right, but now he worried he had miscalculated. He had offered himself in return for what he had done earlier that night, and he had thought she was soothed by it, that she looked forward to it. But why disappear? Why run-

"Down on your knees, chevalier dog," Cauthrien said from just behind him, voice flat and stern and low enough to send curling panic and arousal twining down along his spine.

When had she learned to move so silently? He hadn't heard a creak, a step behind him, but as he slowly lowered to his knees and glanced over his shoulder to her, he could see in the dim, watery light that she was in full armor. It wasn't her Warden grey and blues, or the more practical leathers she had begun to don as of late. No, she wore her full plate and mail, polished to gleaming. And she held a sword she had not wielded in battle since the end of the Blight.

He scrabbled for his voice and pride. " _Dog_?" he said, Orlesian startled and sticking in his throat. " _A Fereldan bitch, calling me dog_?" Nathaniel hoped it was what she wanted, that it was simply the game from earlier.

Her quiet stare did not convince him, nor did her stillness, her surety. His mind raced and his limbs ached to move, to push him to safety, but all he could do was stare.

Her gauntleted hand tangled in his hair, wrenching his head so he looked forward once again, over to her bed. She must have been waiting in the small dressing and bathing chamber adjoining the room, ready for him. Somebody must have helped her don her armor. And yet he hadn't heard. _Haven't seen her, Warden_ , they'd all said.

His heart lodged fast and hammering in his throat and he sucked down a deep breath around it.

"Careful," she said, "with your words, you prick." She loosened her grip just a little, just enough that she could stroke along his scalp with an armor-clad finger. "I call you _dog_ , but you are only the most flee-ridden mongrel in the streets, belly thick with worms and pelt lost to mange. A scavenger, picking at leftovers. A coward. Not even a wolf."

She suddenly tightened her fist and used her hold to throw him onto the ground.

"Hardly a mabari."

He caught himself only barely, fingers splayed on the cold stone and cheek inches from it. He shook and moved to stand, but she pressed her foot to the small of his back. She did not force him down. She simply waited, the pressure bearable, more a question in action than anything else. He let her bear him down.

"You would call me a _Fereldan bitch_ without knowing what it means," she said, words quiet and gentle.

" _And what_?" he gasped. He reached for an armor of disbelief, of dry humor. He smirked at the pressure on his spine; she did not pull away. " _Will you train me, then_?"

"I'm not sure you have the breeding for it. The courage- tenacity- loyalty. Obedience. A mabari understands his master's wants. Do you understand mine, you worthless piece of horse shit?" He had never known her voice to sound like that, her breath to rattle through her words. He had heard her shout in battle, heard her rage, heard her sigh in pleasure. This was none of those things.

It almost didn't sound like her at all, and the thought tamped down the genuine fear roiling in his gut. When he had played the chevalier he had spoken in Orlesian, said things he never would. Here she did the same - a marker that this wasn't real. She was playing.

But _Maker_ her boot on his spine hurt, and it ground his now growing erection into the floor beneath them.

He twisted his head to look up at her, shadowed save for points of glinting metal. She still held the Summer Sword, and her expression was unmoved and focused, as she gazed down at him. He found a chuckle waiting and quirked a brow. " _Your wants? I know you want me to fuck y_ -"

Her blade was at his throat, and his words halted in a strangled gasp.

"This sword," she said, calmly, as if she were not an inch and an impulse away from her lover's lifeblood, "was made by Vercenne of Halamshiral, commissioned by Lord Aurelien of Montsimmard. It was made for his son. The son became a chevalier, but never used this blade because it was _out of style_.

"The Hero of River Dane took it from his body on the field at Avinash. The man had reached for the blade because he had no other options, but that is not the place for a blade such as this."

She turned it so that the flat of the blade faced him, reflecting his widened eyes, his flushed skin.

"Are you so proud as he was, to turn aside something because of fashion?"

Nathaniel said nothing, swallowing, and Cauthrien let more of her weight press into his back.

"Or will you kiss it out of reverence for its usefulness, its quality, its beauty?" Her voice dropped low with the words, toe grinding into the upwards curve of his spine as she shifted her weight forward. Her heel lifted up and he was pinned only barely, was able to move, to squirm, to finally tilt his chin so that he could touch his lips to the chill, polished metal. It tasted of steel and grease, the blade freshly oiled. She pressed it firm to his mouth and then withdrew, stepping back and setting the blade aside.

"On your feet," she said. "Strip."

He almost said no. He almost rolled onto his back, crossed his arms behind his head, and looked up at her expectantly. Another night, he would have. He would have teased at her, tested her; but now, even with her blade set away and the knowledge that he had agreed to this, invited it even, enough fear lingered to make him comply. Fear - and want. This was a side of her he had only ever heard stories of, exaggerated by their Orlesian tellers. Cauthrien, the knight. Cauthrien, the right hand of Loghain Mac Tir.

Cauthrien, the dragon.

He pushed himself up to his feet and unfastened his doublet, his trousers, toed off his boots, shucked his smalls. When he couldn't meet her eyes - cold eyes, determined eyes - he clung to his tight smirk through his unsteady breathing and looked at where there was a peek of her leather leggings below her mail tunic and above her boots. He knew those legs, the way she gasped when he kissed the back of her knee. He knew her.

Nathaniel was full hard by the time he let the last of his clothing fall away.

She looked at him without response. Her eyes were hooded and her lips set into a slight frown. He felt himself begin to wilt under her gaze, but then she moved, the barest creak of metal and leather, and lifted a hand to her hair. He watched as she undid the strap binding it, the same strap that he had gagged her with earlier that day. Then, it had been all force and need and he had only marked it for its use. Now he watched as the worn leather slid free of the knot she had bound it in, slithered over her fine dark hair, and finally dropped down to her pauldron before she pulled it away entirely. The sudden fall of hair around her angular face softened her for just a moment.

And then she stepped forward and gingerly ran the armored tip of one finger over the length of his cock. He hissed through his teeth and stepped back, but she reached forward with her other hand, the one that held the strap, and caught his chin. He stilled. His fingers twitched at his side and he went through every way he could take her down now that she was unarmed, then cast them aside.

 _You could beat me blue and leave me with a practice dagger up my ass, tied spread-eagled on the bed, if you like. I'd kiss your feet, let you jack me with your gauntlets on no matter how much it pinched and hurt_. He had asked her for this. And he knew, without a doubt, that if he told her to stop, she would.

"You're going to learn patience and respect, dog, until you've learned how to behave and to serve. A mabari is his master's equal, can read her moods and her desires. He protects her and fights beside her." Cauthrien's voice was soft, the words murmured nearly against his lips as she drew closer. "Prove yourself to me, and maybe I'll let you guard my house and warm my bed."

" _Maker_ ," he breathed, and with a shuddering exhale tried to close the distance between them. Her hand tightening against his chin and her fingers curling lightly around his cock stopped him, the press of leather and steel to his length making him grit his teeth and close his eyes.

"I said patience," Cauthrien said, and then let go of his jaw, instead dropping her hand between them. She stretched out the thong and wrapped one end around the base of his erection. Her fingers were not so nimble as his, especially armored, but he could recognize the knot - bowline, safe, quick to loose, and soon snugged tight around him, making him groan. He fought to keep his hands at his sides, but he touched her, reaching for her wrists, her arms, hands hovering up to her shoulders. She stepped back and pulled the long end of the strap taut, a leash and a pressure on him that made his hips twitch forward, his eyes close to slits.

The distance it allowed between them was just over a foot. The strap was long, she said, for ease of wrapping and tying, but he knew that it was a different piece of leather than the one she had worn when they first met. Some other use had broken it in before this, tying a pack closed or securing a sheathe upon a wall. There were other reasons to wear it long.

Had she ever thought of this one before?

He could feel his pulse in the base of his shaft, throbbing with increasing force, and his eyes remained fixed on it. His mouth went dry, his skin prickled, and he felt his cheeks bloom with heat.

"Come to heel," Cauthrien said, quietly, and he came to her and sank to his knees without thought, tilting his hips up and stretching to ease the tension in the lead. She was beautiful and dangerous and intimidating, and it made him ache to touch her. He gazed up at her instead, hands on his thighs. His fingers dug deep into his flesh.

She smiled, and it set his blood on fire. "Good dog. Should I reward you for that one little step?"

Need arched down to his belly. " _Let me touch you- please, let me touch you_ ," he asked, face tilted up to her in obeisance. It was a struggle to find the words in Orlesian, and they left in tumbling gasps. " _Please_."

"Kiss my armor, dog. Show me what you already know how to do." Her small smile threatened to turn into a grin. He knew the twitches of the muscles by her eyes, by her mouth, and he watched hopefully until it fell to a look of pleased amusement and she tugged on the strap. He eagerly leaned forward to press kisses to the flap of steel that covered her groin, then higher to the fitted breastplate that covered her belly. He lifted his hands and was mere inches from feeling her thighs beneath his fingertips when she tugged again, this time hard enough to make him cry out. The knot did not tighten but the pressure on him was nearly unbearable and he dropped his hands to his side, pressing his cheek to her abdomen as he sucked in shuddering breaths.

Cauthrien released the tension, but not without one last jerk. "I said kiss, not touch. Orders are specific. Would you disobey on the battlefield?"

" _No_ ," he groaned, nuzzling at her plate and kissing the embossed details. He dragged his lips over every inch he could reach, including the back of her hand, the joint at her wrist. He tasted the steel and suckled on the edges of each piece. He adored her until he could feel, see her tremble, and then, his confidence returning, he lifted his gaze to her face once more.

She was flushed and biting at her lower lip, and he smirked around the armored digit he held just between his lips. He could play her game. He could wind her up and pull her down with him.

" _Unless you want to punish me_."

Her brow furrowed and her mouth curled into a snarl, striking his cheek with her free hand and sending him to the ground once more, hips raised awkwardly and fingers splayed on the stone. He coughed and gasped for breath, the throbbing flare of the slap almost too great. It was almost too much. His ears rang and his jaw ached, but he felt no blood, nothing except a quickly exquisite sting. And he began to laugh, a quiet thing, as he looked back up to her.

" _Beat your dog, would you_?"

"A willfully disobedient, arrogant dog?" she returned, lifting one foot to press her toe against the base of his cock. "One who still barks instead of speaking with any degree of intellect?" He gasped as she ground the steel-covered leather against him, too light to truly hurt but too firmly to get away from. He could see the edges of a smile on her lips, amusement, enjoyment. "What do you think?"

" _Ah_ -"

"Get up, dog. On your feet. I need assistance out of my armor. You can manage that at least, can you not?" She gave him a firm tug and he stumbled up, fingers twitching eagerly to touch, to pull apart. "Quickly."

He bowed his head, kissing at her pauldron as he undid the strap binding it. The metal was cool against his still-stinging flesh and he nuzzled against it until he was forced to draw away to set it down, bending awkwardly. He knew this. He had taken her armor off for her before, had peeled away the layers of mail and plate and wool padding beneath. But now his fingers trembled and he gasped and groaned with the strain of not being able to kiss her skin, of having her so still and passive beneath his hands. The tip of his cock rubbed against mail and plate and he shuddered. Her gauntlets were cast aside, as was the chain tunic covering her beneath all her buckled steel, and soon his hands were working at the laces keeping her arming jacket on, her leggings up.

And through it all, she barely moved except to switch the lead between hands as he undressed her.

Her hips were still dotted with bruises and the curving scarlet lines of his lashes. He dropped back to his knees to kiss them as he bared her skin. His lips against her skin was a revelation and he moaned open-mouthed. Her hand slid into his hair and tangled, tilting his head up and back, and he gripped tightly to her calf.

"I didn't say you could do that."

Nathaniel answered in a wordless growl, licking at his parted lips and waiting until she released her hold on his scalp and loosened the lead between them once more. He watched as she let the leather slip from her fingers. He swallowed as it pattered to the floor, not daring to move.

She stepped on the end of it and lifted her other foot, pressing her heel to his thigh. She waited.

He kissed the top of her boot, resisting the urge to nuzzle her skin or the leather leggings bunched halfway down her thighs. Her fingers trailed up the curve of her calf, then back down, and he took her heel in hand. She pressed hard into it as she had into his thigh, and he grunted with the effort of pulling her boot off, catching the woolen socks beneath and dragging them down with it.

Nathaniel watched, entranced, as she settled her foot back down on the floor, catching the strap with her toes and shifting her weight to keep him pinned. A glance up her all but bared body showed her smirking again, eyes fixed on his hands as she settled her other foot in his grip.

This time he kissed the arch of her foot, the dip of her ankle, as he began to work the leather and steel and wool down. A few sharp tugs and she was free. He cast it aside and dipped his head, nuzzling against her ankle and shin. He pressed a kiss to her toes, breath catching in worry and expectation.

She only pulled her foot away and pressed it to his chest instead, easing him back.

Sucking in a relieved breath, he reached up to pull her leggings and smalls down. Her legs were finely muscled, taut, shapely in a way she didn't seem to understand but that he couldn't help but thrill to. Her body was a creation of her life, all work and strength and dedication. He licked at his lips again and glanced up to her as she stepped carefully from her clothing.

" _May I kiss you_?" he asked, and through her last article of clothing, her tight-strapped breast band, he thought he could see a shift in shadows of her nipples hardening. He clung to that idea and to the scent of her he could just barely pick up.

"Speak properly, and I might let you," she said in a shaking exhale.

"May I?" he repeated, feeling freer without the Orlesian caging his tongue and making it slick with the memory of what he had said to her in the stables.

She considered him, her expression softening. There were moments where she grew vulnerable, when he glimpsed a piece of her he felt sure that few had ever seen. She looked younger then, wide eyes a little melancholy, the set of her jaw a little tired. For just a moment, she looked innocent in the silvery light of middle evening.

And then she settled her foot against his shoulder, lightly, an invitation, and he rose up on his knees to kiss at her thighs without hesitation. He nuzzled his cheek against her, nipped just enough to get her to part her legs still more as she gasped. One of her hands came to rest on his head, scratching at his scalp as she dragged him closer. He groaned and fought to keep his hands away from her, too aware now of how she hadn't given permission for touching, parting her instead with a swipe of his tongue and a brush of his nose.

She responded eagerly, heel pressing hard against his shoulder while her hand tightened and nestled him against her sex. He could hear her choking down sounds of pleasure as he dragged his lower lip over her nub, tonguing it only briefly, only lightly. She bucked and hissed and he grinned. He still knew her. He could still make her writhe and whimper and probably even howl if he tried hard enough.

He was willing to try.

Without his fingers he had to alternate between working her nub and dipping to tease at her entrance. She was hot and slick and he moaned her name, only to receive a harsh tug in response as she groaned in answer. "Master," he corrected when he pulled away for a breath, and she nodded, the motion uneven and stilted. He went back to her eagerly, grinning and nipping at her lips, sliding his tongue into her for just a moment.

She bucked and nearly drew blood from his scalp with how tightly she held onto him, but he hooked an arm around her thigh and held her still. His fingers did not touch her skin. He felt the beginning tremors of her losing control as her cries grew louder, spiralling towards an ecstatic howl.

And then she shoved him away, releasing his hair and pressing hard with her foot until he was on his back with her towering above him, an Alamarri warrior queen flushed from battle and need, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted and _his_.

Hers.

Something.

She shifted her weight back and trailed her toes down his chest, over his twitching abdomen and to his cock that wept at the tip and bobbed thick and dusky against his belly. It was with a light touch that she slid her foot down to where the leather wrapped around him, still tethering him to where she stood. He shuddered and whimpered and clawed at the stone beneath him.

"Good dog," she said, and her voice was rough and low the way it got when she was just about to come. He knew that voice. He relished it. He arched into the light stroking of her foot.

"I can behave." His own voice was cracking on the edges, his arousal all but beating down his thoughts and words. He was nothing except for where his cock throbbed angrily and where her gaze rested, on his chest, his shoulders, the line of his jaw.

"And you can be patient," she acknowledged, slowly. She bent her knee and settled between his legs, fingers trailing along the taut line between her and his cock. She followed the leather, then plucked the strap from beneath her foot, taking the excess length in hand. She considered it a moment.

"Please," he whispered.

She hesitated. And then she smirked, leaning in. Her fingers, warm and familiar and perfect, touched his shaft and he bucked, groaning. She touched at the knot at his base, and then carefully wound the trailing length up along his arousal, tucking the end in when she ran out.

Cauthrien dipped her head and kissed the tip of his cock, cleaning the slicked tip of it with her tongue before standing up and walking away.

"Cau-" He caught the sound before it flowed into her name, choking down on the rush of frustrated need she left in her wake. "Master," he called instead, struggling to sit up.

"Tell me, dog," she said as she disappeared into the adjacent room. "What does your master want? Do you understand yet?"

He wanted to follow her. Maker, he wanted to follow at her heels, even if he had to be on his hands and knees to do it. He had never imagined she could be like this, that she could exude such control. When they'd fallen into bed, she'd whispered in his ear that he was her first in over a decade. He would have taken things more slowly, but she'd rolled him over then and mounted him, kissed him clumsily until she couldn't breathe, had taken him.

So Nathaniel had known she could be forceful and could be rough, could pin him to the bed or the ground or a table and steel his senses for a few minutes or an hour or an entire day. And he had known she could call out orders and have men who outranked her following them. But to see her like this, to listen to the timber of her voice, was heady and intoxicating.

He heard a whine, and realized it was coming from his throat.

"Well?" she called. There was the sound of rummaging, of wood on wood. He stared at her armor, then at the darkened doorway. The shadows were his place, not hers, but he couldn't find the will to slip into them, come up behind her and turn the tables. He could imagine too clearly how it would go, pulling her into his arms until they were lost to breathless sighs - or her hand striking his face again. He wanted both.

But he wanted to prove himself more, and he staggered to his feet, erection bobbing almost painfully against his stomach. "You want," he tried, but his voice didn't carry. He cleared his throat. "You want- you want-"

He was so good with words, but she had him tripping over himself and she couldn't even see him. He couldn't see her. He couldn't see the stripes he'd left on the swell of her rear, the bruises from his fingertips, the nips he'd left on her thighs and, earlier, at her throat. Nathaniel fought for control. _She wanted_ -

For him to take her? No. Nathaniel lifted his chin.

"You want to take me."

There was no response, and he flushed and added a low, "Master."

"Good dog." Another woman may have purred the praise as she sauntered back in the room. But Cauthrien's voice was simply steady and came from the gloom. There was no approach, no teasing draw. "Kneel on the bed. And wait."

There were quick words at his lips. Playful insults, needles to rile her with. But no sound came from the shadowed room and his pulse still pounded in his throat, choking him. He turned and walked to the bed, settling onto his hands and knees, head down, breath shallow. _Kneel_ , she said.

He remembered what he had told her, days ago. Weeks ago? Other lovers he had once had, other things he had done, weaving stories for her to sate her curiosity. He had expected jealousy, and while she had frowned and turned away, it had been out of only the mildest of nerves, a fear that she didn't measure up. But she did. _Maker_ , she did, unexpected and understanding and strong, and if she didn't come back to him soon, he would sink down into the mattress and try to disappear until she did. The ache was too great.

There was no sound.

She couldn't have left. There was no rustle of fabric, and the door to the hall was barely out of sight. It was not a silent door. There would have been a draft. But he realized with a shudder that she could be anywhere. He was just as distracted, if not moreso, than he had been when he stepped into the room, and he hadn't heard her move despite her full armor. Now, she was naked and his pulse roared in his ears and arms and legs and cock. He had no hope without focus.

He focused. There was no sound.

It wasn't the first time he had submitted to a lover, but it had been many years and it hadn't been like this. His partner had been lascivious, predictable, indulgent. His partner had had experience. But Cauthrien, he knew, would be inventing as she went. Her domination was true and natural to her. He flushed and pressed his forehead to the sheets to cool himself.

There was no sound.

When he finally could not bear it a second longer, he raised his head again. "Master?" he called, his voice reedy and thin, thinner than he would have liked. He steadied himself, then found the quirk of brow, the twist of lip, that made the baiting come more easily. " _Would you abandon your dog so quickly_?"

The Orlesian would make her angry. The Orlesian would draw her back.

But there was no sound. He cursed under his breath, wanting to rock his hips down to the mattress.

" _Master_ ," he called again, jaw tightening, " _a hound without a firm hand may go feral again. He will snap and snarl and take his handler to the ground without another thought_." He fought to keep his voice steady, but it soon went from demure from shudderingly challenging. There was no response. There was no response, and the abandonment made him groan and shift and clutch at the sheets.

"Feral?" she breathed, and she was close enough to make him twitch and gasp. The mattress dipped behind him. "Your loyalty would be lost so easily? Your training ignored?" There was not so much as a bump of her knee or a ghosting of her finger to break his isolation. He wished, then, for even a tug on the damn lead around his cock, but there was nothing.

" _I do not take well to being abandoned on a whim_ ," he growled in frustration. He tensed then, awaiting a response. There was none, and his traitor mouth continued, " _All your work, gone to waste because of pri_ -"

Her hands were on his hips then, the contact electric and sudden and heady. She tugged him back against her sharply, something hard and unyielding and slicked with oil pressed at his backside. She nudged once, twice at his entrance, and then pushed forward, only the oil and the tapered head of it easing her passage. He cried out, scrabbling for a hold in the sheets, tensed and shuddering as Cauthrien curled around him. Her breath was hot against his spine, her lips ghosting over his shoulder blade. He burned and stretched around whatever she had inside of him, mind racing to name it.

Three weeks ago.

Three weeks ago he had bought her a phallus, wood covered in stitched and boiled leather, but had it been this large? He'd told her, too, of having men in his bed before. But to have it be Cauthrien, slowly easing her way in even as he gasped and groaned-

He pressed his face to the mattress and tried to steady himself. She stilled with the head of the phallus just inside of him, hand now on his lower back. Nathaniel breathed thanks to the Maker as he reminded himself that the toy was smaller than most men. It still ached and stung, but the little rocking motions Cauthrien was beginning to make eased the worst of it, her kisses on his skin soothing him and making him relax under her. His cock twitched as she nudged deeper still, pulling him back against her even as she pushed forward and stretched out along him.

"I would not abandon you. Do not question me," she breathed in his ear, and he groaned and pressed all the way back until he could feel her hips flush with his.

" _Agh_ \- no, I- I won't. I won't," he panted, Orlesian falling away again as he adjusted to the feel of her, of _it_ inside of him. A gift of his, his undoing. Fitting, he thought in a shuddering haze, given how his present had been turned against her in the stables.

She knew him.

She knew him well, and she must have listened to the hitching of his breath, watched the fall of his chest, because she didn't move again until he relaxed just enough and began to want. Her hand slid along his spine until she tangled her fingers once more in his hair, keeping his head pressed into the mattress as she began to roll her hips. Cauthrien straightened up, her breath no longer tickling his skin, but the rhythm of her thrusts steadied and he gave himself over to it. He met her strokes and choked on moans, crying out shuddered gasps of her name and master and please until he couldn't think.

He was on the verge of falling apart, shattering into a thousand pieces, and the leather knot around his cock seemed too much and not enough. The tightness was a stimulant and a stopblock, as much his master as she. She held his hips too high for him to rut against the mattress and he gasped into the sheets, body overhot and not hot enough.

"Please," he whispered. "Please, Cauthrien. Please."

Cauthrien leaned in again, hand in his hair turning soft and gentle before slipping down to his shoulder, his waist. "I could make you beg," she rasped, her voice far too steady for what she was doing to him. "You wanted me to beg you for it - release. I found it without your permission. And yet you can't do the same." Her hand slipped beneath his hips, fingers curling around his cock and pumping, drawing another strangled cry from him. She nudged free the length wrapped around him, peeling it away until only the knot remained.

"I could make you beg, dog," she repeated, teeth catching the lobe of his ear, a touch he had taught her. "But I won't. You've done well."

Her fingers twined into the knot, her thrusts slowing for just a moment until the leather slithered free in a heady sliding rush. He groaned and stretched his arms above his head, pushing the heels of his hands into the mattress to rock back against her with more force. He had to feel her. He had to feel the length of her thighs brushing his, her hands on him, her toy inside of him. He- He-

"Go ahead, Nathaniel," she murmured, low and rough and sweet, and with a single touch of her calloused fingers to his shaft, he came, her name on his lips and his body spasming and twitching beneath her until his world went black.

  
**\--**   


He drifted in a haze he hadn't found in years, the utter exhausted bliss of being worked far beyond breaking. The sheets were cool and smooth, his sweat long dried, and he felt warmth beside him. Something trailed over his skin, chill and slick, and he opened his eyes with a groan.

Cauthrien knelt at his hip, lit by candles at her bedside, a pot of pale blue paste balanced between their bodies. She dragged her fingers in careful patterns over his shoulder and chest, matching similar lines on her own skin. When he hummed in waking, she looked to him and smiled. There was a concerned edge, a thread of melancholy, and she sighed, hands stilling.

"You broke."

"I bent," he mumbled, throat hoarse. "I wanted to bend."

She didn't respond at first, though her fingers resumed their work, the two she held together spreading and tracing thinner lines that rejoined just below his nipple. "Oh?"

"You asked me if I wanted to be your partner," he said with a shrug that made him wince. His whole body was sore, his scalp and the nape of his neck scored by scratches that stung as he shifted.

"We make a good team," she agreed, her smile returning with more confidence. Cauthrien leaned down, trailing her lips across his brow in a languid line of kisses. "I am honored that you would choose me to go into battle at your side."

"Mm, a noble and intelligent beast am I," he said with a chuckle, reaching out to dip two fingers in the pot. He reached up to trace a line down her cheek, splitting in the center before coming back together, mirroring what she had placed on him.

Cauthrien's eyes closed to half-mast and she laughed. "And so handsome in kaddis."


End file.
